Two Christmas Stories

On Christmas day, the nurse got within range of the crazy patient. Seeing an opportunity, he attacked. Jerking his leg with enough force to break the restraint on his ankle, he then kicked the nurse in the sternum. The impact sent her flying backwards into the glass wall. Hitting her head, she then fell on the floor. Scared and crying, she was taken to ER where she spent the rest of her Christmas.

That was a declaration of war. We've put up with his nasty sexual comments. (No, we don't want to suck his dick or show him our titties.)We've done our best to keep him safely in bed despite his best and sometimes successful efforts to fall on the floor. We've hand fed him and changed his diapers, all the while being forced to listen to his dirty mouth. We've even ignored the swats, attempted swings and screaming. But this was the last straw.

He's now in four-point leather restraints which has created even more work for us. With these kind of restraints, we have to do his vital signs every 15 minutes, record it and have the doctor renew the order in person every four hours. It's such a pain and not surprisingly, it seems to be making him even more agitated.

I honestly don't know what we're going to do with him. No one will take him and we can't dump him on the sidewalk or put him on a bus somewhere. (Greyhound would probably not accept a person in shackles carried onto one of their buses.) We're starting to fantasize about medication errors. We could wait for him to die of old age, but he's young, otherwise healthy and will probably outlive me.

My other Christmas story involved a man who got on his motorcycle to visit the grave of his father who died on Christmas several years ago. He crashed, broke some bones and is now a patient in our hospital which is also where his dad died. The patient never got to visit his father's grave, but instead spent the anniversary of his dad's death as a patient in the same hospital that his dad died in.

So, that was my Christmas. At least I got eat enough chocolate to make me sick. Some traditions must continue no matter what.